The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, June 19, 2015

Israel doesn’t need to go along to get along, especially in times when tepid allies are hostile -- and “partners” like RAND are working both sides of the street.

Once upon a time, when America believed in totalitarian threats, RAND Corporation might have been the go-to venue to game or explore kinetic solutions to problems like Pakistan, North Korea, and now Iran. Those days are long gone. Unfortunately, old school RAND was at one time a strategic critical mass, host to the likes Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie, Albert Wohlstetter, and John Von Neumann. RAND’s Pentagon focus, unfortunately, was undone by antics on the Left in the person of Daniel Ellsberg.

New RAND world HQ in Santa Monica

After Ellsberg leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers, Strangelovean RAND retreated and tacked towards social studies, health care for example, and threw national security baby out with the integrity bathwater. In the beginning, RAND was situated on the Left Coast to be as far from politics as possible. Today, RAND is quite comfortable midst Hollywood hype in Santa Monica.

Indeed, the RAND endowment, and political footprint, now includes a presence in California, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Mississippi, the UK, Belgium, the United Emirates, and Qatar. Following fonts of funding, RAND today probably has one of the largest “non-profit” nest eggs outside of Harvard yard. RAND is a public service “charity” in the same sense that the NCAA is a branch of higher education.

The most troubling institutional links are with Arab autocrats. How does RAND square Sunni-sponsored terror and Islamism with democracy and freedom, in particular the survival of an Israeli democracy? Clearly, Arabia is the wellspring of Sunni Islamic supremacist ideology and jihadfunding on a global scale. And how now will RAND square a nuclear Shia theocracy in Teheran with the prospects of Armageddon? If recent research, or spin, at RAND provides any clues, the news on any of these fronts is not good.

RAND studies fly under four flags, “non-profit, independent, objective, and non-partisan.” You will see the same adjectives, ironically, at the Institute for Defense Analysis. None of these assertions are true anymore, if they were ever believable. No institution goes from one plant to ten without being very profitable. And it is the rare think tank that succeeds by telling clients what they do not want to hear. In short, the most useful tool for American contract analysis, as with US Intelligence assessments these days, is a wet finger in the political winds.

Research titles alone are probative. Recent RAND examples include: The Days after a Nuclear Deal with IRAN, a series of six reports, all of which assume an agreement yet to be made or published. Such analysis might be characterized as policy “front running.” Then there is Grounds for Cautious Optimism on an Iran Nuclear Deal, another piece of front running. A recent Foggy Bottom apologetic favorite might be Relax, Iran is not taking over the Middle East (sic). This flippant RAND gem trivializes Shia militancy in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Gaza, Bahrain, and now Yemen.

The King of Jordan might be vexed by the prospect of a “Shia Crescent” in the Mideast, but apparently sectarian imperialism is no big deal on the beach at Santa Monica. These are but a few examples. What they have in common is pandering, appeasement, and apologetic wishful thinking, the kind that characterizes Obama era policy towards the apocalyptic sects of Islam.

All of this is underwritten by parallel and blatant political hostility towards Israel. Hostility, we might add, that is enabled by both major American political parties. As Pakistan and North Korea did before, Iran is playing for time, while America is again playing the fool.

RAND thinking on the Sunni (or Saudi) side of the threat equation is a non-performing asset too. Most pernicious is the notion that jihad and terror are isolated crimes with local motives, not acts of war. This has been the Team Obama party line since John Brennan, now CIA director, was an advisor at the American president’s elbow. The twaddle was underwritten by RAND political “science” in the interests of denying a global phenomenon, war with two shades of Islam. Indeed, consider the new ISIS, Boko Haram, and Yemini battlefronts as the stepchildren of naiveté.

How in any context do you pacify jihadists with an American notion of justice that has no relevance to a warring theocrat? Those on either side of the Shia/Sunni divide who seek martyrdom might more appropriately have their wishes expedited not prolonged.

America is now confronted with the hideous spectacle of rendition, prison, and jurisprudence where jihadists have the same rights that shoplifters enjoy. Such folly will only provide very expensive circus trials, propaganda martyrs, and recruitment incentives.

Some 90 or more nations now provide recruits to the Islamic Caliphate. Yet, RAND is still cooking the strategic books for profit and America still pretends that it is not at war. The latest RAND report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a blatant endorsement of the two-state solution on economic grounds, a slight of hand that, not coincidently, that should energize the BDS movement should Israel fail to knuckle under.

RAND might be a “premier” research institution on some subjects. Religious politics, terror, sectarian war, imperialism, fascism, irredentism, and the Islam bomb are not part of that mix. If RAND Corporation were capable of “rethinking a long-term strategy” for Israel, they would have sold a similar scheme to a much needier American administration by now.

The Shia Bomb

Other than the Israeli Prime Minister’s candor before the American Congress, the omens about the impending bilateral nuclear “agreement” with Tehran are not good. Clearly, whatever the document looks like, it will be a reflection of principals not principle. John Kerry and Wendy Sherman are on point for the American side. Secretary of State Kerry is the former poster boy for the anti-war Left in America with a lineage that goes back to the Nixon era. And today Ms. Sherman, Foggy Bottom negotiator, is to the Iran nuclear deal what Victoria Nuland was to the Benghazi fiasco and the Kiev coup. If Wendy Sherman’s efforts with the ayatollahs are anything like the results with the totalitarian North Koreans, then a second Islam bomb, this time in Shia hands, might be a sure thing.Sherman is a former social worker with impeccable Emily’s List progressive credentials. She has been, variously, a lobbyist and a Democratic Party fundraising maven. Like Ms. Nuland, Wendy has the diplomatic sensitivities of a PETA pit bull. Recall that Nuland chortled a celebrated “f—k the EU” when Europeans were slow to endorse Ukraine coup shenanigans. Likewise, Sherman insulted democratic South Korea recently by trivializing imperial Japanese sex slavery during WWII. Withal, both women are echoes of their mentor, Hillary Rodham, who wrote Libya’s epitaph with an epithet, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Clearly, with team Obama, appeasement of Islamic jihadists or alienation of allies doesn’t register – or matter. Evidence that Team Obama is now pandering to Shia priests is more than suggestive. Israel has been kept in the dark, the Israeli Prime Minister has been snubbed and vilified. Benjamin Netanyahu has been characterized also, vis-a-vis Iran, as a “chicken shit” by a senior Obama spokesman. Indeed, Democratic Party minions financed an “anybody but Bibi” campaign in Israel in the run-up to recent Israeli elections. Fortunately, the regime change strategy backfired. Back home, adding insult to injury, the US Director of National Intelligence, without public discussion or debate, removed theocratic Iran and terror surrogate Hezb’allah from the Annual Threat Assessment for Congress.

Disarming Israel

All the while, numerous unilateral sanction and proliferation concessions have already been made to Iran. And now, the Pentagon releases an Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) report, circa 1987, on Israeli nuclear capability. Unmasking the useful ambiguity of Israel’s nuclear secrets is designed to argue that the Islam bomb is the moral equivalent of any other bomb in a free world arsenal. In short, exposing the military capabilities of the one democracy in the Levant is spiteful payback for an Israel that refuses to cut its own throat.

Clearly, the next edition of US policy for the Mideast is a “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” a rationale for imperial Islam and the bomb. Alas, a Shia weapon on top of existing Sunni nuclear weapons is Israel’s worst nightmare.

Lowering the nuclear threshold between warring Muslim apocalyptic sectarians is one thing, but both Shia and Sunni theocrats share common enemies: Israel, Europe, and America. When the chant of “Death to America” is raised in Iran, we are led to believe such sentiments are just local politics.

Indeed, Shia priests have also vowed to “wipe Israel off the face of the earth.” Should we not take the ayatollahs at their word? When Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” goes nuclear, surely Israel will be the first casualty -- and the first to be blamed. Anti-Semitism is ever the canary in the privy of political obscenities.

Cavalier would be a charitable characterization of team Obama’s attitude towards Israel, Jews, and the next Holocaust.

The Rand/Herzl Mosaic

Some say that bad news comes in threes. If that folklore is true, Israel just hit a disaster trifecta: an impending bilateral agreement on the Persian atomic bomb program that excludes Israel, a malicious leak of classified data on Israel’s nuclear capabilities, and the announcement of a RAND Corporation/Herzl Institute collaboration to “rethink long-term strategy for Israel.”

Contrast Israel’s Herzl Institute with the RAND Corporation. Herzl is what RAND used to be: small, focused, candid, and uncorrupted by political correctness, multiculturalism, or the avarice that now passes for research diversity. Any institution that pretends to be all things to all clients probably isn’t much use to any.

Indeed, Herzl is different to the extent that their scholars bring a critical moral dimension to analysis, a quality sadly lacking in the quantitative sterility of most science today, at places like RAND Corporation in particular. The great questions of 21st Century security require moral not scientific solutions. Moral clarity is not the strong suit of California corporate weathervanes that turn with the politics of the moment.

In Washington, think tanks are known as “Beltway Bandits.” RAND is known as the mother of think tanks for good reason. Fiscal success today may be more a function of rationalizing policy rather than assessing failures and designing futures. Surely, the politically correct convergence of Obama administration and RAND perspectives on Muslin kinetics and Islamic imperialism is no accident.

A policy of “Mowing the grass” may be an expedient for Israel now and in the near future. However, if the alternative is appeasement, surrender, or annihilation; then tactical yard work looks pretty good. Israel needs to remember that large social democracies and their defense intellectuals can afford to be wrong and still survive a decade of strategic incompetence. Israel has no such luxury – and no future that can be predicated on wishful thinking.

American politics is likely to be more about personal legacy than national prudence for the next couple of years. Israel doesn’t need to go along to get along, especially in times when tepid allies are hostile -- and “partners” like RAND are working both sides of the street. The eye of the hurricane is not necessarily the worst place to be when the winds of war are wreaking havoc elsewhere.

Murphy Donovan writes about the politics of national security. He was a USAF Intelligence Research Fellow at RAND and subsequently the project monitor for ACSI/USAF research at RAND Corporation under General James Clapper.Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/06/dangerous_liaisons_rand_corporation_and_americas_national_security.html Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

“The Obama State Department simply ignored the law. They
refused to produce the report. Months have gone by and they continue to
refuse to produce the report.”

Flouting
the law once again, the Obama administration refuses to release a
report detailing Iranian human rights violations. By federal statute,
the report was supposed to be released February 25. But not wanting to
embarrass his new friends in Tehran, Obama has refused to obey the law
and give Congress the information required.

Senator Ted Cruz wants to fine the State Department for their foot dragging.

Cruz
and other senators petitioned the State Department in May to comply
with federal law compelling the report’s public release.“That report was due by law on February 25,” Cruz told the Washington Free Beacon in
an interview. “The Obama State Department simply ignored the law. They
refused to produce the report. Months have gone by and they continue to
refuse to produce the report.”Angered
by this delay, Cruz is gearing up to file legislation this week that
would fine the State Department 5 percent of its budget for every 30
days it postpones releasing the report, according to a copy of the bill
viewed by the Free Beacon.“It
is a penalty for willfully violating federal law,” Cruz explained.
“This is also a policy decision that is profoundly counterproductive.”“This
simply puts a financial bite into the obligation because the Obama
administration has demonstrated a willingness over and over again to
violate federal law,” Cruz added.Iran has long been a leading violator of human rights,
carrying out hundreds of state-sanctioned executions and abusing the
human rights of its citizens. Iran also continues to imprison several
American citizens who human rights advocates report are being abused.Cruz
said the report is likely being delayed in order to avoid upsetting the
Iranians and potentially harming ongoing nuclear discussion.“It
appears that both President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are
trying to sweep under the rug Iran’s horrific human rights record
because, presumably, acknowledging that fact would be inconvenient” for
the ongoing diplomacy with Iran, Cruz said.The
policy, he added, appears to be “surrender everything to the Iranian
mullahs in a hope they will accede to a [nuclear deal that only
accelerates their acquiring nuclear weapons.”The lawmaker and current presidential candidate went on to accuse the administration of ignoring Iranian human rights abuses.“This
administration has consistently refused to address the human rights
violations” committed by Iran, including the imprisonment of Americans
such as Saeed Abedini and Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Cruz said.“The
Obama administration seems more focused on swilling Chardonnay with
Iranian despots then on securing the release of American citizens
wrongly imprisoned,” he said.

“The
secretary’s participation in the report rollout, even if it must be
delayed by his travel, elevates the report,” the State Department said,
according to a copy of the letter. “The secretary has needed to travel
abroad for extended periods, often on short notice, during the past
three months to address a variety of pressing foreign policy concerns.”

Kerry's
travel schedule over the last three months is irrelevant. The report
was due out in February - that's 4 months ago. I guess they're not very
good at counting at State these days.

And
how about that claim that the delay "elevates the report." Are they
insane? Who believes that except 5 year olds and liberals.

Cruz
should give any cash the State Department pays in fines to Iranian
human rights groups. Given the tyranny they live under, they can use it.

U.S. President Barack Obama intentionally violated "no
daylight" and "no surprises" principles of U.S.-Israel ties, former
Israeli Ambassador to U.S. Michael Oren says • Oren: Obama changed U.S.
policy on Iran and the Palestinians without telling Israel.

Former Israeli Ambassador to
the U.S. Michael Oren

|

Photo credit: Gideon Markowicz

U.S. President Barack Obama has deliberately
damaged U.S.-Israel relations, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.
Michael Oren wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Tuesday.

In the op-ed, titled "How Obama abandoned
Israel," Oren, now a Kulanu MK, accused Obama of violating the "two core
principles of Israel's alliance with America," which, according to
Oren, are "no daylight" and "no surprises."

More details of Oren's time in Washington will
be revealed in his new book, "Ally: My Journey Across the
American-Israeli Divide," set to be published next week.

On Tuesday, Oren told Israel Hayom, "Obama
came and changed the U.S. government's approach to Iran and the
Palestinians without informing or consulting Israel."

In the Wall Street Journal op-ed, Oren wrote,
"From the moment he entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of
championing the Palestinian cause and achieving a nuclear accord with
Iran. Such policies would have put him at odds with any Israeli leader."

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process, Obama put the entire onus on Israel and "ignored Israel's 2005
withdrawal from Gaza and its two previous offers of Palestinian
statehood in Gaza, almost the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem --
both offers rejected by the Palestinians," Oren wrote.

Oren noted Obama "voided President George W.
Bush's commitment to include the major settlement blocs and Jewish
Jerusalem within Israel's borders in any peace agreement. Instead, he
insisted on a total freeze of Israeli construction in those areas --
'not a single brick,' I later heard he ordered Mr. Netanyahu -- while
making no substantive demands of the Palestinians.

"Consequently, Palestinian [Authority]
President Mahmoud Abbas boycotted negotiations, reconciled with Hamas
and sought statehood in the U.N. -- all in violation of his commitments
to the U.S. -- but he never paid a price. By contrast, the White House
routinely condemned Mr. Netanyahu for building in areas that even
Palestinian negotiators had agreed would remain part of Israel."

Later in the op-ed, Oren turned to the Iran
nuclear issue, writing, "The abandonment of the 'no daylight' and 'no
surprises' principles climaxed over the Iranian nuclear program.
Throughout my years in Washington, I participated in intimate and frank
discussions with U.S. officials on the Iranian program. But parallel to
the talks came administration statements and leaks -- for example, each
time Israeli warplanes reportedly struck Hezbollah-bound arms convoys in
Syria -- intended to deter Israel from striking Iran pre-emptively.

"Finally, in 2014, Israel discovered that its
primary ally had for months been secretly negotiating with its deadliest
enemy. The talks resulted in an interim agreement that the great
majority of Israelis considered a 'bad deal' with an irrational,
genocidal regime. Mr. Obama, though, insisted that Iran was a rational
and potentially 'very successful regional power.'

"The daylight between Israel and the U.S.
could not have been more blinding. And for Israelis who repeatedly heard
the president pledge that he 'had their backs' and 'was not bluffing'
about the military option, only to watch him tell an Israeli interviewer
that 'a military solution cannot fix' the Iranian nuclear threat, the
astonishment could not have been greater."

Oren called for the rebuilding of U.S.-Israel ties to
their pre-Obama status. "With the Middle East unraveling and dependable
allies a rarity, the U.S. and Israel must restore the 'no daylight' and
'no surprises' principles," Oren wrote. "Israel has no alternative to
America as a source of security aid, diplomatic backing and overwhelming
popular support. The U.S. has no substitute for the state that, though
small, remains democratic, militarily and technologically robust,
strategically located and unreservedly pro-American."

Speaking
to Army Radio on Wednesday morning, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan
Shapiro said, "[Oren] is my friend, but I don't agree with what he
wrote. He is in a different role now. He is a politician and an author
who wants to sell books. Sometimes an ambassador has a limited view of
private conversations between leaders and his description doesn't
represent the truth. His version is imaginary."

The attackers “had valid user credentials and
run of network” which they obtained through “social engineering”.

Ars Technica,
describing how China “hacked” the OPM database, obtaining the records
of millions of Federal Employees, notes that we should we should use the
word “hack” advisedly. The attackers “had valid user credentials and
run of network” which they obtained through “social engineering”.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for
Cybersecurity Dr. Andy Ozment testified that encryption would “not have
helped in this case” because the attackers had gained valid user
credentials to the systems that they attacked—likely through social
engineering. And because of the lack of multifactor authentication on
these systems, the attackers would have been able to use those
credentials at will to access systems from within and potentially even
from outside the network.

“Social engineering” for those that don’t know, is an IT security
term for “someone gave them the password”. It’s not hard to see how the
Chinese might have wheedled out a credential.

Some of the contractors that have helped OPM with
managing internal data have had security issues of their own—including
potentially giving foreign governments direct access to data long before
the recent reported breaches. A consultant who did some work with a
company contracted by OPM to manage personnel records for a number of
agencies told Ars that he found the Unix systems administrator for the
project “was in Argentina and his co-worker was physically located in
the [People's Republic of China]. Both had direct access to every row of
data in every database: they were root. Another team that worked with
these databases had at its head two team members with PRC passports. I
know that because I challenged them personally and revoked their
privileges. From my perspective, OPM compromised this information more
than three years ago and my take on the current breach is ‘so what’s
new?’”

Katherine Achuleta, the director of OPM claims that at least she
found the “hack” — note the use of scare quotes used to preserve the
reputation of real, honest hacking. ”Archuleta told the committee that
the breach was found only because she had been pushing forward with an
aggressive plan to update OPM’s security, centralizing the oversight of
IT security under the chief information officer and implementing
‘numerous tools and capabilities.’ She claimed that it was during the
process of updating tools that the breach was discovered.”

Admiral Kimmel should have used that line at Pearl Harbor. “I noticed the base was bombed and informed Washington immediately.”

Katherine Achuleta, the person in charge of the Crown Jewels has had an interesting career path to her current position. Her biography at opm.gov
reveals a person proud of her membership in an “inclusive workforce
that reflects the diversity of America”. Nowhere, however does her
biography indicate that she knows diddly squat about computers, computer
networks or security.

On May 23, 2013, President Obama appointed Director
Archuleta to lead the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the
agency responsible for attracting and retaining an innovative, diverse
and talented workforce to make the Federal government a model employer
for the 21st century.On November 4th, Archuleta was sworn in to begin her tenure as the
10th Director of OPM, and the first Latina to head this federal agency.Director Archuleta began her career in public service as a teacher in
the Denver public school system. She left teaching to work as an aide
to Denver Mayor Federico Peña. When Mayor Peña became Secretary of
Transportation during the Clinton Administration, Archuleta continued
her public service as his Chief of Staff. Later, Peña was appointed to
head the Department of Energy and Archuleta served as a Senior Policy
Advisor in the Office of the Secretary.After the Clinton Administration, she went back to local government
and became a Senior Policy Advisor to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.Archuleta spent the first two years of the Obama Administration
serving as the Chief of Staff at the Department of Labor to Secretary
Hilda Solis.As the Director of OPM, Archuleta is committed to building an
innovative and inclusive workforce that reflects the diversity of
America. As a long-time public servant, she is a champion of Federal
employees.

But OPM is right though. Encryption wouldn’t have helped. The
problem was somewhere else. Modern Western society has its own
definition of “social engineering”. It apparently means putting people
in charge of things not because they know anything about it, but because
they possess the highest symbolic value. Race, gender, inclination or
identification — especially political identification — are so much more
important these days then being able to tell a difference between a
hashed key and corned beef hash.

Sometimes it's hard to face up to the cold reality, but we must confront
the insidious threat of foreign-funded left-wing NGOs waging Europe's
war on Israel.

It is a function of the human condition that we are very easily given
to denial. As a parent, one does not want to hear that your child
misbehaved at school. We rationalize all sorts of behavior because we
prefer to maintain an aura of tranquility. This is generally true on the
national level as well. When a beloved or respected public figure is
found to have engaged in immoral and/or illegal behavior, we find it
very difficult to process the dissonance.

I receive plenty of
criticism for my views and I am never shy in proffering criticism of
those I feel should know better. This is normal political discourse. The
recent brouhaha regarding the state funding of culture has shown one
thing – that freedom of expression is not injured when the state refuses
to subsidise projects which it determines are injurious and deleterious
to society. Yet while this lesson is being internalised with respect to
the arts, we remain oblivious to more pressing problems.

Im Tirzu
has long sought to draw attention to the fact that many of the
so-called human rights groups that operate in Israel are in fact foreign
funded quislings who hurt Israel’s standing and reputation in the
world. In a report that Im Tirzu published Tuesday,
we have documented over twenty different instances of just three NGOs
that have made it their business to embed themselves into international
fora and mechanisms, such as the Economic-Social Council of the United
Nations (ECOSOC) and the UN High Commission on Human Rights, the latter
of which was the primary vehicle for the infamous and ultimately
retracted Goldstone Report.

It is a matter of public record that
the three organizations in question (Adalah, Ittjiah and Israelis
against House Demolitions) have been the beneficiaries of millions of
euros over the past decade. Both the European Commission and individual
member states fund groups like these directly as well as funding larger
organisations such as the New Israel Fund, who in turn disburse the
funds to these organisations and others like it.

It is time to
call a spade a spade, reclassify these organizations as foreign funded
lobbies and subject them to the same scrutiny and transparency as
similar groups undergo in the West, where in countries such as the
United States and Britain, they are required by law to declare their
donors and political intentions. Legislation mandating transparency has
already been suggested in various forms and is urgently required to
mitigate the damage groups like Adalah have done and continue to do to
the State of Israel.

The new My Truth group gathers testimony from IDF soldiers which presents a true picture of how Israel conducts itself in wars.

Matan Katzman, a retired Givati ​​officer retired and active in the
My Truth pro-IDF organization, spoke Wednesday before the
EU's Subcommittee on Human Rights, which is expected to arrive in Israel
as part of its ongoing fact-finding mission on Operation Protective
Edge in Gaza.

My Truth was established about six weeks ago by five reservists, in response to the extreme leftist group Breaking the Silence.

Avihay Shoreshan, one the founders of the organization, told Arutz Sheva that the five were spurred by Breaking the Silence's falsehoods in their highly-published report.

"When we saw that what they are doing in this report, claiming that
the IDF acted in an aggressive and inhumane way, and basically said it
all apart from the actual use of the term 'war crimes', we went on an
operation of our own to gather testimonies from soldiers who fought in
[Protective Edge] and other operations who capture the true spirit of
the IDF," he said.

Shoreshan noted that pro-IDF testimony in the media - unlike the
stories perpetuated by Breaking the Silence - was "virtually
non-existent."

Katzman's testimony is expected to influence the commission and
various organizations involved with the EU Subcommittee, he said, and My
Truth was invited to counteract Breaking the Silence's and other
leftist groups' testimony by the Foreign Ministry.

"He told the committee that the reality on the ground is not black
and white," Shoreshan said. "He spoke about personal incidents he had as
an officer, and he qualified to the Europeans the descriptions given
by Breaking the Silence and noted they have an agenda."

Katzman added that "there is no political body which stands behind
us, we represent the entire political spectrum in Israel" in making the
speech, according to Shoreshan.

"Breaking the Silence constantly boasts that they stimulate debate in
Israel and abroad, but in practice most of their work is to go speak to
parliaments - and that they don't speak about," he added. Refael LeviSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/196888#.VYKxWEazd-9 Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Jordan is preparing for invasions by Islamic terror groups by arming
Bedouins in Syria and Iraq to prevent incursions, reports say.

Jordan's King Abdullah II

AFP/File

Jordan is gearing up for a possible invasion by Islamic terror groups, local media reported Thursday.

According to reports, King Abdullah II, on a tour this week of
border areas near Iraq and Syria, offered to arm Bedouin tribes living
in those areas - on both sides of the border - to fight against Islamic
State and Jabhat al-Nusra, which threaten Jordan from the east and
north.

Abdullah's concern has been growing in recent weeks, reports
said, over the fact that after 3,000 bombing raids by the US and its
allies, ISIS has not been beaten back – and seems only to get stronger.

With the organization solidifying its rule in much of Iraq and
Syria = and in line with its pledge to expand its “Islamic caliphate” to
the entire world, starting with the Muslim countries - Abdullah
believes that Jordan is high up on ISIS's list for an attempted
takeover.

Meanwhile, Jordan faces another danger from the north.

The Al-Nusra group, a fundamentalist organization associated
with Al Qaeda, controls much of the area on the other side of the Syrian
border. This group, too, has expansionist plans, and the open frontier
between Syria and Jordan is almost an open invitation to incursions by
the group.

During a tour of the border areas on June 15, Abdullah stated
that it was Jordan's obligation “to assist Arab tribes in Iraq and
Syria,” hinting that he would rely on the tribes as a first line of
defense against incursions by ISIS and Al-Nusra.

The tribes living on both sides of the border have close ties,
and Abdullah believes that they would aggressively defend their areas
from invasion by the Islamist groups, reports said.

Abdullah's declaration set off rumors in the Arab media that
Jordan was preparing to seize border areas on Iraq and Syria in order to
fend off invaders. That plan was denied by Ahmad Almoumani, an advisor
to Abdullah.

“Jordan has no plans to expand at the expense of neighboring
countries, who we respect and value. We hope to preserve our own
independence, and our borders," he stressed. Yaakov LeviSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/196925#.VYKvzEazd-8 Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Where is the world's outrage? Just imagine what would happen if Israel had issued such an edict - which it never would, since Israel practices religious tolerance.

China has banned civil servants, students and teachers in its
mainly Muslim Xinjiang region from fasting during Ramadan and ordered
restaurants to stay open.

Most Muslims are required to fast from dawn to dusk during the holy
month, which began on Thursday, but China's ruling Communist party is
officially atheist and for years has restricted the practice in
Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.

"Food service workplaces will operate normal hours during Ramadan,"
said a notice posted last week on the website of the state Food and Drug
Administration in Xinjiang's Jinghe county.

Officials in the region's Bole county were told: "During Ramadan do
not engage in fasting, vigils or other religious activities," according
to a local government website report of a meeting this week.

Uighur rights groups say China's restrictions on Islam in Xinjiang
have added to ethnic tensions in the region, where clashes have killed
hundreds in recent years.

China says it faces a "terrorist threat" in Xinjiang, with officials blaming "religious extremism" for the growing violence.

"China's goal in prohibiting fasting is to forcibly move Uighurs away
from their Muslim culture during Ramadan," said Dilxat Rexit, a
spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress.

"Policies that prohibit religious fasting is a provocation and will only lead to instability and conflict."

As in previous years, school children were included in directives limiting Ramadan fasting and other religious observances.

The education bureau of Tarbaghatay city, known as Tacheng in
Chinese, this month ordered schools to communicate to students that
"during Ramadan, ethnic minority students do not fast, do not enter
mosques ... and do not attend religious activities".

Similar orders were posted on the websites of other Xinjiang education bureaus and schools.Officials in the region's Qiemo county this week met local religious
leaders to inform them there would be increased inspections during
Ramadan in order to "maintain social stability", the county's official
website said.

Ahead of the holy month, one village in Yili, near the border with
Kazakhstan, said mosques must check the identification cards of anyone
who comes to pray during Ramadan, according to a notice on the
government's website.

The Bole county government said that Mehmet Talip, a 90-year-old
Uighur Communist Party member, had promised to avoid fasting and vowed
to "not enter a mosque in order to consciously resist religious and
superstitious ideas".

Even if the national CAIR organization truly represented its
"membership" in the national American Muslim community, why is it
pretending to represent the Massachusetts Muslim community?

Originally published under the title, "Does CAIR Represent Boston's Muslim Community?"

Notwithstanding
this powerfully staged April 2015 photo-op of CAIR chapter directors,
none of the "chapters" fundraise, solicit membership dues, or undertake
other activities demonstrating substantial community support. Some don't
exist at all.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in America's largest terrorism financing case, which is officially banned from FBI cooperation, claims to be a mainstream organization advocating for the civil rights of American Muslims. Shortly after Usaama Rahim was shot by law enforcement in Boston on June 2, CAIR leapt into action.

The national organization, that is. Its National Communications Director, Ibrahim Hooper, was quoted in an AP story on the day of the shooting as identifying Rahim, who was communicating with ISIS and under 24-hour surveillance
by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and serving as an intermediary with
Rahim's family. Hooper was also quoted by ABC, asserting that CAIR "will
monitor the investigation" of the shooting. Its National Civil Rights
Litigation Director, Jenifer Wicks, was quoted in a June 3 Boston Globe
story, asking for an independent and thorough investigation "given the
recent high profile shootings of African-American men." Wicks' name also
appeared on a June 3 press release the national organization issued about the shooting.

Contrary to CAIR's press release, it has no local chapter in Boston.

Although the press release coyly refers to "CAIR-Boston," and although Hooper told MSNBC
"two of our Massachusetts chapter board members were in the meeting" at
which authorities showed the surveillance video of the shooting, there
is no local chapter there – hence the need for the national office to
jump in. One finds an occasional reference to CAIR Massachusetts as, for
instance, on the CAIR Kansas website, but the link is defunct. The telephone directory has no listing of a number for CAIR or Council on American-Islamic Relations in Boston. CAIR's chapter list,
which records a total of 28 chapters (a Washington office and 27 state
chapters), does not mention any CAIR branch in the state.

On previous occasions, CAIR proudly proclaimed that it had at least
32 chapters. Back in July 2007, CAIR claimed to have grown to 33 chapters. In another publication from the same month, it claimed to have a total of 32 chapters across the United States. Five years later,
it was claiming the same number of 32, "nationwide and in Canada."
Somehow it lost at least four United States chapters in the interim.
There is a website for a National Council of Canadian Muslims, elsewhere referred to as CAIR-CAN;
even if this is a vibrant organization, there is no information about
local chapters. Counting Canada, CAIR has a total of 29 chapters.

Defunct chapter links on the CAIR Kansas webpage

CAIR websites (e.g., CAIR Kansas and CAIR Ohio) list defunct hyperlinks to CAIR Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, and South Carolina, in addition to Massachusetts. CAIR's list
identifies chapters in Georgia and Kentucky but atypically lists no
website or email address for either. It does include a hyperlink to a
website for CAIR New Jersey, but the account has been "suspended."
It lists no chapters in Nevada, South Carolina, or Massachusetts. None
of these chapters or pseudo-chapters (Massachusetts, Georgia, Kentucky,
Nevada, New Jersey, or South Carolina) has its own employer
identification number (EIN).

There was an Atlanta-based "NGA" chapter, which had its own EIN, but
it appears to be defunct. It has not filed a tax return since 2008, and
reported no income after 2006. Its website returns "server not found," and it does not appear on CAIR's list.

Let's return to CAIR's national office. In 2000, the year before 9/11, it had a membership of 29,000. By 2006, five years after 9/11, membership had dropped to under 1,700. In 2000, it received $732,765 income from membership dues. By 2004, which is to say, three years after 9/11, this Muslim Brotherhood organization claimed to have received only $119,029 income from membership dues. Its income for the latter part of the decade cannot be determined because, for three years, it failed to file tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service. For the years 2011-2013, it reported zero income from membership dues.

Amazingly, it still has plenty of money. In 2011, CAIR received $3,964,990 in "contributions, gifts, [and] grants." In 2012, it received $1,581,411. In 2013, the amount was $2,201,843.For the years 2011-2013, CAIR reported the income at right.It should also be noted that in 2005, the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, Inc., set up a new corporation, CAIR Foundation, Inc.,
transferred some assets to the new entity ("new CAIR"), and eventually
renamed itself the Washington Trust Foundation, Inc. The relationship
between the two corporations is, at best, confusing, with hundreds of
thousands of dollars being lent back and forth between the two.

It's unclear from where new or old CAIR's money is coming, but one
thing is clear: it isn't membership dues from the American Muslims CAIR
claims to represent, and little is coming from formal fundraising
efforts to the American Muslim community. Whatever persons or groups are
financing CAIR – which last year the United Arab Emirates designated as
a terrorist organization – it is reasonable to suppose that CAIR is representing their interests, not those of its "membership."

Even if the national CAIR organization truly represented its
"membership" in the national American Muslim community, why is it
pretending to represent the Massachusetts Muslim community?

Johanna Markind is associate counselor at the Middle East ForumSource: http://www.meforum.org/5334/does-cair-represent-us-muslims Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Consumer's assembly
at northern Sweden city adopts pro-Palestinian proposal to take Israeli
products off the shelves; campaign led by Israeli embassy focusing on
fair trade forced boycotting stores to fold.

Israel has won an
important victory over the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
(BDS) when a boycott on the sale of Israeli products in a supermarket
chain in Sweden has been cancelled.

The national supermarket chain COOP has 655 branches across
Sweden. Israel, that was worried the boycott would spread from three
local stores in the city of Varberg to all branches nationwide, launched
an impressive media campaign to combat it.
Two and a half months ago, pro-Palestinian organizations submitted a
proposal calling to take off the shelves any products manufactured in
Israel, including those produced inside the Green Line. This was a
mostly symbolic proposal, as the chain only sells avocado and persimmon
from Israel.

COOP store in Sweden.

After the proposal was adopted with a great majority at a local
consumer's assembly, Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Isaac Bachman decided,
with the help of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, to fight the boycott not
with arguments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - but with
arguments against the concept of a commercial boycott.

"We didn't talk about the righteousness of Israel, rather we
spoke in the name of fair trade and avoiding discrimination of any
state," Bachman explained.
Bachman turned to the company's management, while at the same
time pro-Israel activists in Sweden started posting against the
supermarket chain's decision on social media. A Swedish businessman
opened a Facebook page titled "Opposing the Boycott against Israel,"
which received 2,500 likes.
The Israeli embassy, meanwhile, posted phone numbers and e-mail
addresses of the COOP chain's management and encouraged pro-Israel
activists to flood them with messages against the boycott. Thousands of
people heeded the call and threatened to boycott the supermarket chain
if it continues its boycott against Israel.

Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Isaac Bachman

"There was a great protest. A lot of people here are against
boycotts," Bachman said. "We talked about fair trade. We explained that
anyone who supports a boycott hurts the customers and the quality of the
products. It resonated with people."
Several days ago, Bachman met with the CEO of the supermarkets
chain and asked him to intervene. "They were shocked by the volume of
messages they received."
This led the chain's national management to reject the boycott
and threaten that if the Varberg stores do not stop the boycott, they
will no longer be a part of the chain, effectively putting an end to the
boycott.
"The lesson I learned is that we must not, under absolutely no
circumstances, give up, and we must launch a counter-campaign," Bachman
said. "If you go for the consumer side, without getting into the issue
of the conflict, your story would be better and stronger."

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Expanding on his remarks in written testimony,
Flynn emphasized that Iran's increasing ‎capabilities should be viewed
in light of its intentions. But the White House, he said, has refused
‎to "acknowledge the frequent warnings from our intelligence community,
especially defense ‎intelligence, regarding the hegemonic behaviors of
the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Lt. Gen. Michael T.
Flynn (ret.) served 33 years in the U.S. Army. Being named President
‎Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 was the
culmination of his career. ‎He thought his job was to relate facts, not
fables. It soon became clear that his superiors didn't ‎agree. ‎

Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle
East and ‎North Africa. Rep. Ted Deutch is the ranking member. Last
week, they invited Flynn to testify. ‎They -- and anyone else concerned
about the threats facing America and her allies -- should think ‎hard
about what he told them.‎

Most pressing is the
nuclear deal with Iran's rulers that the president is attempting to
conclude by ‎the end of this month. Flynn warned that it is shaping up
as "not a permanent fix but merely ‎a placeholder. The 10-year time
frame only makes sense if the administration truly believes the ‎Iranian
regime will change its strategic course." And that, he said, can only
be characterized as ‎‎"wishful thinking."‎

Iran's rulers continue
to claim that whatever nuclear research they are conducting -- in
facilities ‎buried under mountains and at military installations -- is
exclusively for generating electricity and ‎other peaceful purposes. But
they also are developing missiles -- presumably not as a means for
‎keeping air conditioners humming in kindergartens. The missiles they
possess today can reach ‎targets throughout most of the Middle East. The
missiles they will possess tomorrow, Flynn ‎predicted, "will include
ICBMs capable of attacking the American homeland."‎

He is puzzled by the
fact that Iran's missile program has been excluded from the
negotiations: "I ‎don't see how delivery systems (missiles or
sophisticated guidance) can be excluded from any ‎‎'deal.' Reach is as
important as force, just as in boxing."‎

Expanding on his remarks in written testimony,
Flynn emphasized that Iran's increasing ‎capabilities should be viewed
in light of its intentions. But the White House, he said, has refused
‎to "acknowledge the frequent warnings from our intelligence community,
especially defense ‎intelligence, regarding the hegemonic behaviors of
the Islamic Republic of Iran." In other words, ‎Iran's supreme leader
and his Islamic Revolutionary Guards clearly mean to extend their
‎theocratic empire throughout Middle East.‎

Flynn told lawmakers --
more tactfully than I am about to -- that Obama's policies ‎are failing
not just vis-à-vis Iran but also vis-à-vis the Islamic State group and
al-Qaida. The death toll ‎in Syria since a civil war began there in 2011
and in Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal the same year ‎is over 200,000
with no indication that the carnage will end any time soon. Libya and
Yemen are ‎in chaos. Russia, China and North Korea are taking advantage
of what they perceive as American ‎fecklessness. One could go on.‎

Not only isn't Obama
asking his advisors for an alternative policy, "anyone who ‎proposes
one," Flynn told Congress, "is immediately exiled from the
establishment."‎

He knows whereof he
speaks. He was -- assuming I've read the evidence correctly and I'm
‎confident I have -- forced out as military intelligence chief last year
for refusing to toe the ‎administration's line that the "tide of war"
is receding and that the terrorists are "on the run." ‎Echoing those
memes would have been a career booster but it would have been dishonest
at a ‎time when he and other top intelligence officers were well aware
that the conflicts initiated by ‎those claiming to fight for the global
triumph of Islam are spreading, intensifying and ‎accelerating.‎

The White House insists
that if Iran signs a nuclear agreement and then proceeds to violate it,
‎U.S. intelligence will not be blindsided. As someone who knows what
America's spooks can and ‎cannot do, Flynn is skeptical. He cited a
recent Defense Science Board study concluding ‎that "creative missile
and nuclear proliferators" have the upper hand "in the cat and mouse
game ‎they are playing with the United States and the international
community."‎

Not long ago, Obama was
saying that no deal with Iran would be preferable to a bad ‎deal with
Iran. Were that proposition were still operative, the American side
would walk unless ‎Iran agreed to "open up all of its facilities,
scientific, military, and current nuclear facilities, for ‎international
inspections."‎

Iran's rulers have been
saying they will never do that. The most they may permit is "managed
‎access" which lets them decide where inspectors go and when. Would that
give them an ‎opportunity to hide what they don't want inspectors to
see? The question answers itself.‎

The president and his
supporters say if we don't go along with Iran's terms for an agreement
the ‎consequence will be war. Flynn told Congress that a range of other
options should be ‎considered and he suggested key components of some of
them. His main point, however, is that ‎‎"we face a very radicalized
element in the likes of Islamic extremism, Sunni and Shia." That ‎leads
him to this tough conclusion: "The administration's refusal to state
what we can plainly see ‎is beyond irresponsible."‎

He worries that unless
there is a shift, the result will be "entropy on a scale not seen in
centuries. ‎We would have no way of anticipating risk, much less
managing or containing it. Delusions ‎abound these days, but anyone who
can argue for an ICBM- or nuclear-capable Iran is more a ‎pyromaniac
than pragmatist."‎

If Flynn's warnings
have begun to resonate on Capitol Hill, I would expect a solid majority
‎of members of Congress -- Democratic and Republican alike -- to
vehemently oppose any ‎agreement with Iran based on "wishful thinking."
But perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my ‎part.‎

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a ‎columnist for The Washington Times.Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=12899